William Rudolph Kanne

William Rudolph Kanne (7 July 1913 – 24 October 1985), was a physicist, inventor and pioneer in the field of gas flow through ionization detectors, a member of the group responsible for the first self-sustained nuclear chain fission reaction at Staggs Field in Chicago, and participated in the Manhattan Project at the Chicago, Oak Ridge and Hanford sites.

[2] In 1931, Elizabeth "Lib" Mueller graduated at the top of her class from Goucher College in Towson, Maryland and then attended Stanford University where she earned a master's degree in bacteriology.

He became part of the select group that built and operated the Chicago Pile 1 with Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard, and on 2 December 1942 achieved the first sustained nuclear chain reaction.

[3][5] In 1946, Kanne was offered a staff position with the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York.

General Electric had established the facility for the design and development of the U.S. Navy's naval reactor program.